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A nip in the evening air. A blushing maple. A wooly worm with thin black bands, fore and aft.

Do early signs of fall in Vermont translate into signs of an early fall?

Maybe yes; probably no.

Mainstream weather forecasters tell us Mother Nature still is rolling the dice.

Predictions of a "bitter" winter in the latest Farmers' Almanac (or a "milder than normal" forecast in the Old Farmer's Almanac, a competing publication) are, if nothing else, fertile grounds for the imagination.

Climate scientists suggest that, in the long run, Vermonters can expect warmer and wetter weather, year-round — and that an abundance of tree species that specialize in seasonal brilliance (such as red maples) ultimately will flourish farther north.

Is autumn 2013 a harbinger of things to come?

Many of our most ardent leaf-peepers, it turns out, embrace a wait-and-see strategy.

"Anyone who makes a prediction at this point is reading tea leaves; it's just too early," Bennington-based landscape photographer Charles Kozierok posted last week on the foliage forum at ScenesOfVermont.com.

"Need to get a couple of good cold snaps under our belt, at least one of which is already on the way," Kozierok added.

An objective zealot

Although temperature figures into the forecasting equation, there are many other variables that prompt local leaf-turning, Vermont Forestry Commissioner Michael Snyder said recently.

The consensus among observers on the ground is that, statewide, we're on track and on time for another extraordinary foliage season, Snyder added.

Considerable attention is given to proclamations from the commissioner, a self-described "zealot for trees."

Beginning this month, his reports are forwarded regularly to the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing, where they serve to guide tourists (and locals) to prime locations throughout the season.

"We don't want to say things are great if they're not great," Snyder said.

Stressed out

Anomalies, on the other hand, are everywhere.

"There are plenty of hyper-localized phenomena out there that can bring on extra-early color," Snyder said. They can range from trunk damage from a lawn mower to a proliferation of leaf-damaging insects, as is the case in parts of Middlesex.

Among the most common "stressors" to trees this year was the record rainfall in early summer and the persistence of high water in wetlands, ponds and lakes, the commissioner said.

Prolonged soaking of roots (most vividly along the shore of Lake Champlain) challenged trees' overall metabolism, Snyder added — and every year, somewhere, damp conditions will promote the spread of fungi (notably anthracnose) that quickly can turn a leaf from spotty, to scarlet, to brown.

A stressed tree accelerates the process of "translocation" of nutrients from leaves to the main core of the tree, he continued: "Hormones within the tree will kick in, as if to say, 'Let's not waste what we have; let's cut our losses here.'"

Drought, fungi and vandals

In late August, Tim Parsons, the landscape horticulturalist for Middlebury College, said some trees in his neck of the woods had begun turning earlier than usual due to a shortage of summer rain.

"This might not be a problem most years, but my suspicion is that the excessive rainfall this spring pushed more growth than normal, and now the trees are having a hard time keeping up with that new growth in a dry summer," he wrote in an email.

Driving north, Parsons added, the landscape is decidedly greener.

Burlington Arborist Warren Spinner, like Parsons, maintains a routine inventory of early changing trees whose roots have been crowded by streets or sidewalks, or whose limbs prove irresistible to vandals.

"Some of our trees our just reaching the end of their life cycles," Spinner said. "Color change? Other than around the lake, it's no different than the past five years."

Peaking, part one

Foliage season maps — some of them online and animated — illustrate a predictable pattern: Trees turn first at higher latitudes (beginning in the Northeast Kingdom and working south) and at higher elevations (from ridgetops to valleys).

Local variations on this theme abound and sometimes are contested, particularly online.

But early color sightings this year, backed by closely cropped photographs and videos, have stoked more appetites than theories, says Timothy Palmer-Benson, a Morgan resident who administers the private ScenesOfVermont.com website.

The site's Foliage Forum has been popular with leaf-boosters for more than a decade "because we tolerate no junk," he added; its credibility depends on an attentive cadre of moderators.

Margy Meath, a regular poster who lives in Rochester, N.Y., (and has visited Vermont for each of the past 15 autumns), enjoys the high objective standard.

Unlike venues that aim emphatically at commercial promotion, Palmer-Benson's forum "seems to attract many people who simply love Vermont and are in absolute awe of what happens every fall," Meath wrote in an email last week.

"While we all might speculate about 'peak' or 'early' vs. 'late' foliage, most of us ultimately accept that what happens (or doesn't) is completely out of our hands!" Meath wrote.

Peaking, part two

The state's website for tourism, VermontVacation.com, similarly terms "peak" color as "a bit of a myth."

The official line continues: "Many experienced foliage viewers actually consider late October the most beautiful time in Vermont.

"Once the most brilliant colors have passed," the website adds, "the hills take on a subtler and richer range of hues that are just as beautiful, if not as spectacular."

In other words, there is no rush.

Or is there?

Online promoters at Equinox resort in Manchester appeared to be jumping the gun by listing the Maple Leaf Half Marathon, which ran Saturday, as taking place "during the peak foliage season."

Ready for prime time

Kelsey Cottrell, who staffs the front desk for the Manchester and the Mountain Chamber of Commerce, set the record straight.

"There are always people who say foliage is starting early," she said Wednesday. "But right now? It's still summer. Fall could come early — or late. You just never know."

Unlike proverbial kettle-watchers, though, the eyes on our trees apparently delight in what they behold unfolding.

• Sunlight will beam straight down on the Equator at noon in exactly two weeks.

• In Vermont, the fall-equinox sun will hit its highest pitch halfway up to the 90-degree zenith (45 degrees at the border with Quebec — a match with its latitude).

• Although Sept. 22 is touted as the astronomical beginning of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, plenty of folks define the seasonal shift by other metrics, such as the school calendar or the first leaf's fall.